“Saint abroad, and a devil at home.” John Bunyan - preacher and author of The Pilgrim's Progress
My friend has been Crazy Sexy Cool for ages.
She wasn’t born Crazy, Sexy, Cool and she certainly wasn’t any of those things in her early twenties when I first met her. But she figured out how to become those three things and turned a life of gray skies and warm pints into a glamorous life of sipping cocktails by the pool. And she managed it all on zero talent, no outstanding gifts from nature and zilch financial back up.
“Fake it till you make it” she often said to me. And she definitely seemed to get away with it. She moved to main land
As my friend found out, if you want to fake it till you make it, you just have to be the glamorous Brit abroad. There is no other option.
The American Dream may well be that any one can rise to the top... but here in the UK if you want rags to riches…you are in the wrong place. Sure if you become or marry a footballer you may achieve a certain amount of ‘Cheshire Chic’, and those who do well in the trades can fast track to a larger house. But to be truly glamorous in the UK, your origins will certainly hamper you. And if you are trying to fake it till you make it… you’ll have a hard time finding anyone who’ll by your act.
This is the hardest country in the world to fake it in.
You can’t just have the right accessories and blend in here.
You can’t just turn up at the right places or ingratiate yourself with the right people here.
You have to have a proven right to belong.
And that usually means, the right schooling, accent, connections, clubs, employment, hobbies and interests. And believe me when I say that those entry level proof of belonging tools are not just for entry to the upper echelons… but to all sectors of British society.
Strangely enough outside of the four kingdoms that make up our crazy set of islands… no one else understands our complicated class system.
You can’t fake being working class by dropping a few consonants and knowing a bit about the local ‘comp’. (Eh, Guy Ritchie). You sure can’t fake being middle class by joining the womens institute and having a house on the right avenue. (As Hyacinth Bucket found out) And you can forget all about turning up at Henley regatta and mentioning that you haven’t been there since your nanny took you during your summer break from Roedean…the upper classes won’t buy that! (Even if the 7th Earl of Bradford is selling it!)
The system here is pretty water-tight. There is way too much to know about each sector of British Society. You’d never get away with faking it till you make it …something will ALWAYS give you away.
However… as my friend found out, being British abroad is a whole other ball game.
Firstly being from a first world country means that no one mistakes you for the desperate economic migrant you are. (Okay the recession hurt us BUT even though we’ve slid down the charts we are still at the right end of the top 10!)
Secondly we speak a language that most of the world understands or are learning or aspire to understand. Our empire may well have ended in 1922 BUT it was the largest empire in the history of the world EVER, and its legacy is that language, culture and legal systems of the world are influenced by us. (Okay more people speak Mandarin or Spanish but everything that counts is in our mother tongue.)
Thirdly the UK is a major world power with strong economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence. It is a recognised nuclear weapons state and has the fourth highest defence spending in the world. (Which means nothing when you are looking out the window of a tower block in Moss Side, but translates into you are ‘not to be messed with’ when you are overseas.)
Fourthly, our literature has influenced the world to believe we are cultured. Our movies have led the world to believe we are plucky. Our art and pop-culture has led the world to believe that we are cutting edge and eccentric. (Okay, we may not worship Shakespeare, or the Beatles, but the rest of the world does, and yes Hugh Grant is annoying, Colin Firth isn’t really Mr Darcy but the rest of the world see sexy somewhere and we know the Alexander Mcqueen didn’t invent tartan and Damien Hurst should work in an abattoir.. but to the rest of the world it’s art baby!!!)
Mix these four unrelated facts together and suddenly you are a representative of the economically sound, the indispensible, the powerful and the fashionably cultured.
Who could resist?
About one in ten of us Brits plonk ourselves in other people’s countries on the strength of our image as the gift that won’t stop giving. And over all we are most countries most welcome group of migrants. I don’t know if it’s because they are desperate for us to teach them how to make tea, or if they really believe we are superior in some way that we’ve all missed… but they like us.
Being British is good for business…at least overseas. It smacks of being classy. Employers love having their British staff on show. In fact where my mate plonked herself, all she was asked to do was be British. Make perfect cups of tea, dress ‘a la inglese’, and above all speak with ‘that’ accent. This was the bulk of what she did for over a decade and a half. In return, she lived a life as far away from a Moss Side Tower Block as you could imagine.
She was a whole new version of her abroad.
Okay it wasn’t just a case of getting good fake Gucci and standing by the yachts and asking people what time it was in loud Received English (though that helped believe me). If the Euro-trash are going to sponsor you do have to give a little back. BUT it was amazing how little work faking it actually involved.
She faked being educated as to their ears, her UK accent made her sound that way. (Funny… all her accent tells us here at home is that clearly her high point of achievement was failing to pass the Grammar School Entrance Test).
She faked being cultured as her mother tongue meant that she could understand all the BBC adaptations of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens better than the locals. (Who were frankly more interested in watching the locally produced soap than BBC World Service – which she only watched cause she couldn’t follow their TV!)
She faked being eccentric by simply not giving in to wearing local fashions and getting us lot to send out what ever was the latest look on the high streets of the UK. (Strange, one has to travel quite far before Primark REALLY starts to look classy).
The image of the eccentric, educated, cultured Brit abroad, lifted straight from the pages of EM Forester worked well for her. She still knows nothing about art. She still just says, “Let me show you THIS” and stands a respectful distance away from the painting she shows. She still saunters back to her desk, sips tea and reads last weeks ‘Take a Break’ we’ve sent over from England. And the visitors to the galleries still are in awe of the Brit abroad and purchase what ever she points at.
Her European sponsors found her slightly crazy, unconventionally sexy and very very cool. Funny thing is… being thought of that way and treated that way has resulted in her actually being that way… now.
And maybe that’s the only way to make it…till you don’t have to fake it.
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